


Sin Incarnate

by Carpe Natem (Demeanor)



Series: Twelve Days of Solstice [7]
Category: Darkest Dungeon (Video Game)
Genre: Afflicted Character, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Rapture, Rapturous Damian, Sadistic Tardif, Winter fic, slight gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demeanor/pseuds/Carpe%20Natem
Summary: With the penance halls closed for cleaning, Damian is left rapturous, bereft without an outlet for his sins. Alone and dying in the snow, the Flagellant finds a surprising,less-conventionalmethod for obtaining absolution in the form of a well-known sinner.
Relationships: Bounty Hunter/Flagellant (Darkest Dungeon)
Series: Twelve Days of Solstice [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057325
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Sin Incarnate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MnM_ov_doom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MnM_ov_doom/gifts).



> This is for you, Doom :') I'm glad you know first-hand just how frustrating this silly Flagellant is both in-game and also to write. 
> 
> I struggled -- appreciatively so -- with making Damian feel fleshed out and whole. He's going to make a very-soon appearance in Help Wanted, so this was refreshing to explore and get a good foundation of. That being said, how do you take a man who is above all forms of sin and have him agree to be fucked by a stranger? Hopefully I've found a decent way next chapter.

**Sin Incarnate**

Damian was rapturous. 

More than that, he _was ascended_ , blessed with true holy clarity and absolved of all sin. He was man made Light and he reveled in the overwhelming burden he carried as he stumbled past the gates of the Hamlet, vile and full of damnation, back out the way he and the others had arrived from the Court not hours before.

He had _saved_ them all in both body and soul whilst on their expedition, took on the brunt of their stress, stripped them of their bleeding lacerations, shouldered their shameful burdens -- a thankless job for a flagellant that frequently left Damian alone in solitude at camp. That was fine, that was how Damian preferred things; _alone_ to savor his pain and cleanse his spirit of the immorality that surrounded him in the form of jeers or disgust or concern. He didn’t need their pity, didn’t need their thanks, didn’t even need their _understanding_ , merely needed the blood purified by the Eternal Flame as it fell from his body. 

The Light shone red through his wounds, dripped into the bed of white around him.

It looked… soft. _Welcoming_. It beckoned to him in a way that distracted him from his higher calling and Damian sneered at it. If his bare chest felt the cold, it meant nothing in comparison to the heated blood pouring from his body in precious waterfalls. From his chest, from his waist, from his back. 

From his very soul. 

Anywhere on his mortal body that Damian could dedicate himself to the Light, he did so, and his proof of devotion shone in the white scars of past burdens. He treasured them, each and every one, as if a symbol of his cause.

Damian walked on, ignoring his fatigue, _embracing_ his pain, remembering how the others had shied from him yet again on this last expedition. It wasn't unusual, for the lambs never knew when their shepherd had come to save them, but Damian was up to the task regardless.

Except…

Except the bloody transgressors of the Hamlet had forsaken Damian where it mattered; after Damian’s last rapture, the young pup of an Heir had ordered the penance halls closed for the remainder of the year for _cleaning_ . As if mere scrubbing could remove the stains of Damian’s fearsome piety from the cells, coated that they were in his devotion to the Light and Eternal Flame. Rapturous that Damian **_now_ ** was from the cost of the party’s burdens, his body _demanded_ the relief that came from the penance halls lest he lose himself entirely.

The pristine white of the snow teased at him, enticed him with its promising comforts and Damian spit red at it, offended at the thought of letting himself relax into it.

No, he would drive himself on -- to _what_ , Damian wasn’t sure, maddened and enlightened that he was, and it didn’t matter. There was nothing for him at the Hamlet while the penance halls were barred to him, and there were only so many souls Damian could save without the sweet kiss of pain to steady him. He needed relief, his soul full to bursting, his mind gone with frenzy, body red with burden. 

It was almost too much to bear, but he _had_ to.

Damian continued on, deeper into foreign landscape, deeper into insanity, lashing himself with his flail any time his vision blurred or his knees trembled. If he wasn’t on death’s door already, he soon would be, and shameful fear bit at his resolve. 

He was going to die out here, lost to the snow until spring, when his holy, tortured body would be long forgotten.

 ** _No!_** came the harsh whip across his chest, came the snarl from his teeth. He’d be one with the Light, a blessing of the highest honor, and his burden would finally be taken, his martyrdom rewarded, Damian thought madly, _ferociously_. Whenever he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, tempting the final choir of agony, Damian dug his fingers into his fresh chest wound, the loving pain giving him momentary lucidity, but it slipped away quicker each time. The reeling, whirling, snow-laden earth beneath his bandage-wrapped feet had a mind of its own, forcing Damian to stop and empty his stomach of bile and rations and blood.

Wiping at his face, Damian grimaced, knowing the Light was upon him now. He had _failed_. The burden had been too much to bear, and the next few steps he took sent him stumbling to the snow, though he was shockingly numb to the cold, and drenched it in his precious, crimson life. Damian cried out in frustration, rapture mounting with crescendo.

All he had to do was to clear his mind, and after a quick rest, continue on. 

_Clear this mind._

_Clear this mind._

_Clear this…_

…

The world was righted, sudden and strange, the blanketing snow dragged from Damian’s dimmed vision against his control. 

_...What?_

He saw the puddles and drippings of his burden that stained the snow as he was… _lifted_ from it. Something strong and warm dragged Damian from his final resting place within the tarnished snow, an unshakeable grip forcibly pulling the Flagellant from death’s door and draping his limp, aching body across… something broad and firm. Someone’s shoulders. Damian was disorientated, fervid, **_rapturous_ **, and his understanding was splintered as they began to move somewhere quickly. 

Confused, Damian was at a loss and entirely at the dominion of another, who carried both him and his heavy burden elsewhere against Damian’s will. As the world blackened at the edges once more, Damian used his final conscious breath to curse the intruder for their meddling.

A deep, responding chuckle followed his mind into slumber as Damian blacked out.

…

When Damian finally awoke, his body was _hot_ . Scorching, pleasantly so, reacting viscerally to a foreign touch against his chest that made him writhe with… with something **_foul_ ** _,_ something _wonderful._ Pain was lanceting through his skin, and _that_ was familiar, grounding and comforting, but the glide of unrecognized skin on his was very much _not_ and it repulsed him, **_unhinged_ **him. Distantly, Damian realized that he was still trapped in his bloody rapture, unable to find release, intoxicating and cleansing when he needed it most, but unfortunately only made to amplify the sensations of that mysterious touch.

His body felt raw and his muscles resisted, but Damian willed his hand to grasp at that touch, bringing splendid pain and tortuous pleasure to a grinding halt against his flayed chest. 

“H-How… d-dare you…” Damian managed between gritted teeth.

The hand in his tensed, as if preparing for an attack which, in all honesty, if Damian had been able, would have been the case. Luckily for the stranger, Damian could hardly lift his hand, much less have been able to make a fist and swing it with enough force to allay his mounting disgust with the blurred man above him.

“You should sleep,” came the gruff voice, irritatingly calm and chiding, firm and commanding. The nerve of this man…! “Your wounds are wrought with infection, and your fever still hasn’t broken.”

 _Fever_ . Damian tried to scoff, and coughed embarrassingly instead, which sent aching jolts down his overstimulated body painfully. This _fever_ was merely his holy rapture come to favor him, did this grabby man not understand that? If he had the energy to lecture his assailant, Damian would have simply broken his offending wrist and shoved him off instead, far away, wishing for nothing more than to be blessed with silence and solitude.

No such blessing came, and his grip on the other man’s hand weakened. 

In his delirium, Damian recalled how this same hand had lifted him from his icy grave and carried him elsewhere, and in a raspy voice, murmured, “You… you carried my b-burden.”

He didn’t know how to feel about that -- Damian had carried many a sinner’s burdens in his lifetime as a holy man, flagellating for their baser natures with little recognition in return, but _never_ had someone carried _Damian’s_ burden. Really, he had never needed anyone to, and when he had been fearful and lost in the snow amid his affliction, Damian had been… saved, had been _carried_ by another. Torn, the Flagellant was in part thankful and indignant that someone had stepped between him and the Light, as Damian would have surely perished without this stranger’s interference. 

His turbulent admission merely received a condescending snort in response, and the anger that seared through Damian’s tired body had no outlet and lowly simmered. “ _Hmph_. Don’t flatter yourself. After losing as much blood as you did, you weighed almost nothing.”

Damian tried to sneer, but grimaced instead. His blood. His **_burden_ **.

He was lost, rapturous, and at the mercy of this man.

…

Time passed in a matter of wakefulness or sleep, and Damian wasn’t able to keep track of how many days came and went while he was at this man’s whim, but it was far too many. Too many days without penance, too many days of kind touches that Damian was unaccustomed to, trickling water in his mouth and washing his skin, his holy wounds. He tried so hard to stay awake, to keep an eye on the stranger and mind his terrible touches that haunted Damian’s nerves and dreams alike, depending on which state of being Damian was in. 

While awake, those fingers poked and prodded, grazed Damian’s many injuries with something relieving, something _irritating and unholy,_ pulled at them with sharp pricks and soothed them with impious balm. This man was taking all of Damian’s precious cuts and aches and pains and willing them away with those Light-damned hands, infuriatingly so, not even bothering to ask if this was what Damian _wanted_. Every time the Flagellant awoke from his heated, restless, pain-induced slumber, he was distraught to see another gaping wound tended to, stitched and glazed with medicinal ointment, then eventually bandaged one by one.

He seethed with unbridled, rapturous **_rage_ **.

While Damian slept, though, his unpunished sins got the best of him, allowing the surreal image of those despicable hands tending to his cuts and aches and otherwise, those hands bringing him luscious _pain_ , but nothing the Light would approve of. He chalked it up to years upon years of avoiding human interaction like a plague and forgoing carnal needs, but that didn’t mean Damian was _happy_ about it.

The fever dreams were torture on him, demanding pain and pleasure and _more_. Everytime Damian awoke, he was angered to find his body healing, slowly, and awaited the day that he was strong enough to wreak vengeance on his nameless captor.

Eventually, during one of the wakeful periods that Damian’s sight wasn’t as blurred, he glared the other man’s visage into his memory for when he was strong enough to ruin it with a fist or an elbow. He was _tall_ , far taller than Damian was which would make no difference when Damian was able to swing his arms fully, though with how broad the stranger also was, perhaps he’d be able to put up a fight when the time came. His face was square and sharp, filled with scars and shadows from the fire in the hearth, topped with striking auburn hair that looked like fall, or rust-colored blood.

The scars were agreeable on him, Damian reluctantly sneered, though little else. 

“Your name,” Damian spoke with as much force as he could muster, which unfortunately still wasn’t much, but was enough to catch the man’s full attention. His green eyes, dark with only the rolling fire to illuminate them -- it must have been night, Damian realized -- flickered to his impetuously. “What is it?” Damian demanded. 

He had to know the name of his enemy. Had to know which wretched word to repeat in his mind like a mantra as he slipped in and out of consciousness. 

The man took a long moment to answer, as if readying for the worst. “...Tardif.”

 _Tardif._ The Flagellant had heard that name before, but with his weakened state, couldn’t muster the energy to comb through his memories. _Tardif._ He repeated the name to himself, as if afraid he would forget it in his delirium, turning it over in his mind like a weathered pebble amid a storm. Tardif, tall and broad. Tardif, savior and captor. Tardif, his next target for penance and punishment alike; Damian grinned at the thought, quivering in his rapture. To the other man -- to **_Tardif_ **\-- he turned his head and demanded, “Why did you drag me from death’s door, Tardif?”

Damian couldn’t have been sure how long had passed since he blacked out in the snow and this new Light-defier approached and stole his burden when Damian wasn’t able to carry it any further. Based on the rumbling of his stomach, clearly a few days.

A snort was his only answer for a moment, and Damian started to realize that this stranger was as apt with words as he was. That is to say, not at all.

“Seemed in bad taste to let someone die right before Solstice.”

So Tardif was the superstitious sort, Damian mused. _Ridiculous_. The only luck or karma a man needed in life was provided by the Light and one’s ability to sacrifice for it, and nearly said as much before a coughing fit racked his tired body. Tardif was up and at his side with a bowl of steaming liquid by the time Damian’s senses returned, and a quick whiff told Damian that it was broth.

He turned his head, resisting the overly-tempting spoonful of warm broth, then realized with a jolt that his Flagellant collar had been removed and glared up at Tardif. “You’ll regret not letting me die once my strength returns.”

Tardif barked a short huff of a laugh and returned his glare. “Awfully bold of you to be threatening me from my own _bed_ , you ungrateful invalid.”

Shocked at his words, Damian tried to sit up, couldn’t, then groaned in agony as he forced himself to push past the limits of his aching body despite the pull of the many stitches decorating his chest and back. He was in a _bed --_ he was in **_Tardif’s_ ** _bed,_ apparently -- and felt sick at the very thought, for who knew what kinds of foul machinations went on in this man’s sheets that Damian was now nearly fully exposed to. It was firm and old, not luxurious by most people’s standards, but certainly for Damian’s who would sooner subject himself to sleeping on cold stone than this _folly_. 

For the first time since he had been dragged here, Damian surveyed his surroundings and grit his teeth at what he saw: opulence and indulgence surrounded him in the warm hearth, in the rugs and blankets, in the small trinkets and boiling broth. It filled Damian with anger and he tried to force himself from the bed again, straining both his sore muscles and savvy stitches. 

“My flail,” his voice strained from the burden of pain lacing his torso. “Wh-where…”

A sudden palm against his chest threw off his pitiful momentum, forcing Damian back into the too-soft sheets, into the clutches of sin and luxury and _comfort,_ then pinned him there firmly. He looked up to see Tardif’s serious expression, his glinting green eyes narrowed with impatience, mouth pulled into a deep frown, and when Damian tried to resist, that hand pressed him down harder. It was threatening, _restraining_ , an unspoken challenge of sorts and it brought disgraceful goosebumps to the Flagellant’s skin, coating his body in shivers from the rough touch, from the helplessness of being pinned down. When Tardif spoke, his voice was a deep growl, bringing a fresh wave of that overwhelming, _jarring_ sensation made worse without any egress for Damian’s all-consuming **_rapture_ **.

His fears were confirmed: “It’s back where I found you, now knock it off. I don’t want to have to restitch you.”

The rapture was pumping hot in Damian’s veins, mixed with the fever that dizzied him with revulsion, with _need._ He _knew_ what he needed and wet his lips, then weakly croaked, “I need… my flail.” His breaths were coming shorter as Damian panted, “I-I _need_ it.”

Something vile was curling beneath his skin, bristling where Tardif touched him, just above the blessed gash Damian had given himself before he passed out, and there was bile in his throat. No one had ever touched his wounds this way and he writhed in agony within the bed, lips parted in a breathless snarl, something far baser demanding his blood in penance. Without it… without _release…_ Damian feared for his virtue in the absence of the lash’s kiss to cleanse him. 

Who he was before the whip, before the enlightenment of righteous pain, was a vile fetid thing, living by way of **_vice_ **, and Damian feared… he feared he might slip back without his flail. 

“You’re safe here,” Tardif murmured, clearly misreading Damian’s growing needs.

“No, you don’t understand,” Damian groaned, shutting his eyes from the dizzying nearness of the stranger, of the luxury that surrounded him, of the sheer temptation to be anything _less_ than a holy Flagellant. Damian would never, he would _refuse_ , he would bleed away all tantalizing comforts that taunted him here, in Tardif’s home, in Tardif’s **_bed_ ** _,_ and his fingers found the irritated wound stitched shut at his chest. He had created that opening for the Light with pride, with sheer desperation in his moment of doubt, and the fact that this man was corrupting his body by tending his wounds and blocking him from the Light, it made Damian recoil. “I _need_ to… to **_bleed_ **for my sins. I-I need...”

The sharp snort from Tardif’s vicinity wasn’t unexpected, as most people often either feared, loathed, or marveled at Damian’s habits as if he were some walking freakshow, and Tardif grabbed Damian’s feeble wrist still clawing at himself. “So you’re one of _those_ sorts.” 

“ _...to flagellate_.”

“Hmph,” Tardif touched him more, then, causing Damian to lurch from the overwhelming awareness, running his thick fingers past the sheen of sweat gathered on Damian’s face to lay his palm flat across Damian’s forehead. The smaller man tried to push the hand away with a weak shake of his head, but all he managed to do was rub hot skin against skin, causing Damian to suck in a sudden breath. “You can’t. With the condition your body is in, sustain any more damage and you’ll die.”

“I’ll die if I _don’t_!” Damian cried out, eyes peeking open to glare up at the other man, heated hate burning him alive. 

“If you won’t be still, I’ll be forced to restrain you,” Tardif growled and removed the hand at Damian’s sweat-slicked forehead to grab his other wrist, once strong and righteous and unwavering, now nearly limp to Tardif’s will. He was tempted to spit, to curse and thrash and _attack_ the bigger man, but as quickly as Damian had awoken, the fight fled from his tired limbs and he fell slack in Tardif’s grasp. With a chuckle, Tardif continued, “Or is that what you want?”

Damian gathered the last of his waning vitriol, mind just on the cusp of consciousness, the world fuzzy and and fading to Tardif’s smug face, and hissed, “Fool. You are _sin_ incarnate. I seek absolution, not **_temptation_ **.”

…

Between his spurts of waking impatience and troubled sleep, Damian learned that nearly a week had passed. Unfortunately, that meant two _more_ weeks before the penance halls would be reopened in the Hamlet, and still Tardif refused him the lash’s tender kiss or anything similarly punishing in his holy flail’s absence -- something Damian was deeply, _vocally_ bitter about. 

It was the longest Damian had ever gone without ravaging his body, much less while being _rapturous_ , and he was in the worst kind of agony -- the depraved sort of **_needing_ **agony.

On the seventh day, the Flagellant’s body was strung taut like a loaded crossbow, ready and demanding to be plucked with the chord of blissful penance, long as it had been since his last session with his flail, yet still Tardif denied him. The weight of Damian’s sins were overwhelming, his dreams of a low-minded madman’s, his body becoming encrusted with perfectly healed scars that screamed for attention, for reopening. The Light was lost to him without an inlet, his blood festering without an outlet, and with his newfound stamina, Damian was able to prop himself upright, restless, irritated. 

“Blood for the burden… Bones for the Light…” Damian chanted, over and over.

His voice rasped like a broken chain, creaking and grating from disuse. Tardif gave him frequent servings of water and bone broth alike, along with ice chips he broke off from various stalactites around his small shack, and Damian took them reluctantly. The larger, quiet man seemed _insistent_ on keeping Damian alive, despite Damian giving him every reason to thrust him back into the blizzard beyond their cabin. 

“What are you moaning about _now_?” Tardif sniffed with disdain as he approached Damian with a fresh wet cloth and ran it along Damian’s wounds -- once more, without even asking the Flagellant’s permission. 

“The holy Verses,” Damiam croaked, instantly irritated at the incessant, persistent touches along his shivering body. “Not that _you_ would know any.”

He had long since learned that he couldn’t dissuade Tardif from tending to his wounds, the intrusive man, and the more Damian fought him, the firmer Tardif's grasp became. Meanwhile, Damian's body was still ravaged with unreleased rapture, pent up with stress and sin, nerves frayed and responding to the simplest touch as if Tardif commanded lightning to his fingertips. Damian's skin bristled at the feeling, condemning it, _demanding_ it, and Damian had to swallow his curses every time Tardif checked his endless injuries.

"Hmph. Your precious Light never did me any favors," Tardif murmured, spiking Damian's pulse and vicious anger alike. 

"The Light gives no favors," Damian spit out with reverence, lips curled in a cruel smile, body and spirit aching for sweet penance as Tardif's hands roamed his stitches familiarly, _inappropriately_ , causing Damian to shudder again. "Merely rewards those who can carry one's burden."

Those frustrating, jagged jade eyes flicked up to his with amusement glinting in Tardif's depths, close enough that Damian could glare at the flecks of gold within them like greed manifested. "If I recall correctly, I carried _your_ burden, didn’t I?"

Damian tensed, eyes narrowed, breath momentarily caught lest he graze Tardif's annoying face with it, until he growled out, "I never asked you to, _heretic_."

“Did you intend to die out there, then?”

That question stalled whatever contempt Damian might have preached to the larger man, still ghosting his profane hands over aches and pains, over cuts and scars latticed all over Damian’s torso. Vile doubt flooded Damian’s mind, pulled his frown into a grimace, furrowed his brows -- _had_ he intended to die? It should have been an honor to relinquish his burden to the Light, to draw his last breath in holy rapture and give the sum of his blood to cleanse his soul.

But in the time of judgment, Damian had felt _fear._ Embarrassing, sickening fear that he couldn’t even punish himself for yet, between his flail being lost, the penance halls being shut, and Tardif refusing him all pain. 

He would die for his cause in battle, happily so, but shamefully hesitated outside of it.

Tardif had ceased his impure bedside manner and now smirked at Damian, as if able to read his very thoughts, and Damian flushed in anger and embarrassment. This blasted man had seen Damian while at his lowest point, both physically and spiritually, and thought himself a _hero_ for saving him?

“I would sooner gouge out my eyes and end my suffering than remain living in your profane imprisonment,” Damian sneered. 

“Then leave, if you like,” Tardif gestured towards the door, which occasionally rattled with the force of the blizzard still raging outside, then turned back to Damian with an irritating half smile, as if knowing his effect on Damian. “Perhaps then I would have my bed returned to me.”

Damian felt himself blush again and frowned, _hating_ the way this Tardif bastard so easily saw right through him. Those in the Hamlet reviled him, considered his form of penitent martyrdom too extreme, called him a _zealot_ or worse when they thought him out of earshot, but Damian embraced their fear. It encouraged Damian to bleed for their sins, knowing only _he_ was strong enough to bear their burdens alone, but there was none of that fearful respect on Tardif’s square face. No pity, no disgust, no confusion. 

It irritated Damian more than being saved in the first place.

“What are you even doing out here by yourself?” Damian deflected with a spiteful voice. He didn’t truly care, but it was time to put the other man on the defensive. 

There was a length pause then and Damian savored the way Tardif clenched his jaw, averted his gaze, busied his hands with replacing the Flagellant’s red-stained bandages. When he did speak, his voice was clipped, aloof, and it brought a frustrating spike of curiosity in Damian. 

“The Hamlet is _particular_ about how they allow their heroes to destress,” Tardif said with measured words, hard as steel and surprisingly relatable to Damian -- his methods of coming down from a rapturous expedition were usually met with that familiar appalled scrutiny. A scoff then, and Tardif muttered, “Accidentally hurt one of their brothel girls and suddenly it doesn’t matter how many fishmen you’ve killed beforehand. Judgmental prigs.”

Damian’s frown returned at that -- not at Tardif hurting another person, accidentally or otherwise, as Damian was also known to turn his flail on others while rapturous as to guide them back to the Light’s precious blessing. 

“The corrupt flesh of others rots the mind with baser wants,” Damian recited, voice harsh at the idea of Tardif sinning at the brothel like a common cur. “I can guide you, _purify_ you.”

Tardif ignored that, opting instead to grasp the mug of now-chilled soup at Damian's bedside table -- at _Tardif’s_ bedside table, the Flagellant mentally corrected himself -- and raised it to Damian’s mouth. The smaller man merely snorted, keeping his face firmly set in a bitter frown, as if in a petulant challenge to Tardif; how far would the strange man go to keep Damian alive, and _why_ go through all the trouble anyway? 

"You were far easier to care for while unconscious, you know," Tardif raised an eyebrow, voice dark with warning, which Damian scowled at -- he would not allow this mysterious, confusing _sinner_ to intimidate him. They would see whose will was stronger between them. "And better company as well. Perhaps I should render you _still_ again so I can get this over with."

“You deny me the blessing of pain and instead insult me with… _vice!”_ thundered Damian, mouth pulled back in a snarl. It was something he could deny no longer, and his rapturous fury was mounting into a fervor without release.

Gathering his meager strength, Damian _smacked_ the mug of broth from Tardif’s hands and sent it clattering to the floor, the sound of it shattering into pieces drawing Damian’s attention. It lay against the wood in tantalizing shards, all peaked to edges sharp enough to temper both his own sins and those of Tardif’s, many that they were. That foreign, petulant _defiance_ thudding hot in Damian’s veins came to life once more, and before he could wonder why the irritating Bounty Hunter managed to spark that strangeness within him, Damian felt a hand at his neck.

Tardif was clearly up for the challenge Damian gave him. 

“You must really like being _restrained_ , Flagellant,” Tardif breathed out as he roughly settled Damian into the mattress. 

Damian felt his face redden, both from the inane accusation falling from Tardif’s lips with a cruel smile and from the lecherous pressure at his throat. He would not be tamed so easily, and with a strained roar, Damian swung his fist at Tardif’s face with what little momentum he could muster from their positions. 

The punch landed, though pitifully so, and Tardif all but shrugged it off with an animalistic laugh, then tightly grasped Damian’s offending wrist with his other hand. In a sudden shift, Tardif had his full weight on the Flagellant, pinning Damian to the mattress with brute force alone and smiling that wretched, eager smile down at him. Tardif seemed to have a particular penchant for violence that matched his own, Damian thought wildly, wrist and throat caught in Tardif’s vice-like grip. He glowered at the maddening contact of their hips and squirmed, testing the give between them, but to no avail.

Tardif had the upper hand now, and he knew it by the way those thick fingers clenched tightly, _gratifyingly_ , over Damian’s heated skin. Damian tried not to arch into the touch, but couldn’t help it when his rapturous mind demanded **_more_ **. 

"Seems you _do_ enjoy this as much as I do,” rumbled Tardif with sickening clarity, and Damian felt vile as he shivered. “Though weren't you just preaching against ‘ _baser wants_ ’?"

He hated this, hated Tardif, hated _himself_ as he writhed against the harsh pinch of pressure against his throat, jaw hung open and eyes squinted up at Tardif as Damian lost himself to the sensation of _pain_. It took everything in him not to moan, not to debase himself the way Tardif expected him to, and his mind swam as it fought against the will of his aching, needy body. He had never gone this long without cleansing his body of sin, never gone this long in the heat of rapture without an outlet.

"You think me some lowly brothel girl you can hurt for pleasure?" Damian rasped.

The grip against his throat abruptly tightened, cutting off Damian’s air entirely, and Damian’s eyes rolled and his body bucked with desire. He knew he had hit a nerve in the other man with his cutting insult, and if Tardif could so thoroughly unwind _him_ , then why not do the same to Tardif? Damian grinned past the pulsing of blood in his head, at his groin. 

Tardif snorted at the reaction of Damian’s body, so welcoming of the rough treatment that the Bounty Hunter normally had to be so mindful of with others, but not this man. Not the Flagellant, who seemed ready to burst from the way Tardif manhandled him.

“A brothel girl wouldn’t be wanting _more_.”

Damian flinched, shamed and frustrated at just how clearly Tardif was apparently able to read him, and managed to breathe out, “You are sin incarnate, _demon_.”

He received a sadistic laugh in return, and suddenly the hands were gone from him. Air came rushing back into Damian’s lungs and stars floated in his vision. The lights in the cabin became too bright and his temples _ached_ from the pressure of his pulse, pounding hot and heavy in his ears. Despite the feeling of life returning to his wrist and throat, Damian immediately resented the absence of Tardif’s hands, bringing luscious pain and punishment to his desperate, sinful body. 

As Tardif moved from Damian’s body to pick up the pieces of the shattered mug, Damian glanced down and flushed red from head to toe at the sin that gathered at his core and throbbed achingly between his legs. The Bounty Hunter seemed equally afflicted, pants pitched tight with expectation, but merely raised his brow at Damian; clearly the Flagellant wasn’t as scrupulous in body as he pretended to be with Tardif. 

“A brothel girl certainly wouldn’t have responded with _that_.”

Tardif’s words were spoken with salacious expectancy, as if the man couldn’t be happier with this development, and the tone of his sinful words left Damian’s mouth dry at the thought. As Tardif picked up the pieces of the Flagellant’s destruction, Damian put a hand to his throat, where he could feel the promise of bruises decorating his skin, shaped in Tardif’s handprint. ...And Damian _grinned_.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Merry Shitmas, Doom! I hope Damian is convincingly horny in this and not out of character at all. I was tempted to end this a few paragraphs later, and just have the two men wordlessly accept each others weird kinks over some hot cocoa, but. We're right at the smut-zone.
> 
> How can I say no??
> 
> So I've drafted at least one chapter worth of smut to be added, perhaps two depending on how these guys deal with their repressed needs. I just always end up taking my time with smut, so hopefully it will be worth the wait.


End file.
